


Storms on Sunny Days

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [19]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gentleness, Protective Loki (Marvel), Reader-Insert, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23641900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: The world can be dark, and grim, and hideous. Loki does what he can to help.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 10
Kudos: 199





	Storms on Sunny Days

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this one because I'm finding it all too easy to slip into the kind of self-loathing funk that this reader does in this fic. If you recognize anything in this fic, please remember that depression lies. We're going to pull together and get through this. Please just keep doing what you can to social distance and keep yourself (and other people) safe.

Every once in a while, for no particular reason, your brain had a tendency to decide that you were the worst. No matter what you did, it was hard to escape the running narration in the back of your mind about how awful you were, how stupid, how selfish, how pointless. It never lasted more than a day, thankfully, and it never drove you to consider really drastic measures, but it was just a shitty way to feel for an indeterminate amount of time. Before the world shut down, it was simple enough to keep these days hidden from other people: if you couldn’t at least pretend that things were normal, you could just pretend to be sick and lock yourself in your apartment until the storm had passed. But now that Loki was here in your space...it was tricky.

In some ways, he might have been part of the trigger for this episode. Last night, after you’d made dinner and the two of you had eaten, he’d shooed you out of the kitchen so he could take care of cleanup. He was a prince. He was a _god_. And he ended up elbows-deep in dirty dishwater in your shitty little kitchen. There was no way that he was happy here. The thought had occurred to you (not for the first time) last night, and despite the way he curled himself around your body in bed like he always did, you only grew more and more certain of it through the night.

This morning you’d extricated yourself from his arms early, when the light was still misty and grey, and made the mistake of checking the news while you waited for your coffee to brew. People were still dying. Corporations were still trying to milk every last dime out of people before casting their bodies aside. Governments were still screwing everything up. It felt like there was no way that humanity could possibly make it out of this mess.

Anger and powerlessness grew in you until it weighed you down right there at your computer. You didn’t bother to get up when you heard the coffeemaker finish, or when the lovely aroma of coffee made its way to your nose. Here and there you’d click on some link or another, type a few lines into one of your documents for work, but it all felt so pointless. It only got worse when you heard Loki get out of bed. He shouldn’t be here. He should be at the Tower with all of Tony’s digital servants and Thor and all that space. An entire floor of the Tower was set up like a gym, for training. There was a swimming pool. Yes, there was an entire team of Avengers, who had spent a long time trying to straight-up kill Loki, but there was also his brother, who was adored by everyone and who adored Loki. He’d be happier there than he could ever be here in this little matchbox with you.

You stared at your screen with blurring vision, tracking Loki’s movements through your apartment. When he’d finished getting ready for the day, he went into the kitchen. You could hear him take down a mug for coffee, and then...another one. You had to blink furiously as you listened to him prepare two separate mugs, and then he came to stand beside you.

“Forget your coffee?” He sounded amused as he held out your favorite mug to you. Sluggishly, you reached out to accept it from him and took a sip. As always, he’d gotten it exactly right.

“Yeah.” Your voice sounded more like a croak than an actual human voice. Didn’t Loki deserve a partner who was his equal, instead of a damned frog? “Thank you...”

“Of course.” It wasn’t hard to tell that he could sense that something was Off about you, but he didn’t press you for information, only went to sit in your recliner instead of beside you. That, of course, only confirmed your suspicions that he was not happy here, and you bit your lower lip, hard, to keep yourself under control.

You “worked” in silence for a while, though your attention was more focused on Loki than your computer. He had a book open in his lap, because reading was one of the only escapes he had from you in this grim, tiny little world. He was clearly having difficulties focusing on the words, though: the book would lie open on the same page for ages, much longer than it would if he were actually reading. Here and there he’d take a sip of his coffee. Your own went cold sitting beside you. He’d gone to all the trouble of making your coffee just the way you liked it and you couldn’t even pretend to appreciate it. 

“Darling.” His voice was beautiful in the heavy silence that surrounded you, musical and magical and perfectly befitting of royalty. Your chest hurt. “What troubles you so?”

“Nothing!” Your voice was a little too sharp, too loud. You swallowed and repeated yourself once you got yourself back under control. “Sorry. Nothing. I’m fine.” There was no way he could ever find out what was going through your head right now. He’d only feel like he had to assure you that it wasn’t true. You started to ask if _he_ was okay, but cut yourself off before you could get very far. You didn’t want him to feel like he had to lie to you. You attempted a smile at him before returning your attention back to the screen.

He was quiet for a long time. It felt like he was trying to come up with something to say to you, but couldn’t. Or, more likely, perhaps he knew what he wanted to say to you but wasn’t sure how to say it without hurting you. After a while, you heard him draw in a deep breath, and then he slid out of the chair. “I’m going to go talk to Thor,” he said. “I’ll be in the bedroom.”

“Okay. Have fun.” Your mouth felt dry. Loki leaned over to kiss your cheek, and then rested his forehead against your temple. Something surged in your chest and made you want to sob, but you managed to hold it together. 

For a little while, you could hear the low hum of Loki’s voice through the thin walls of your apartment, but then, without warning, things went silent. Probably he’d cast some kind of spell to keep you from overhearing him as he tried to get his brother to help him figure out how to leave. As stupid as it was, you let yourself get lost in shitty news story after shitty news story.

Just as you became convinced that humanity deserved every bit of what was happening and what was still to come, Loki appeared before you. You didn’t flinch, but you also didn’t look up at him. Resolutely, he reached out and snatched your laptop from you, then twisted away from you when you tried to retrieve it. “We’re going for a walk,” he said in a firm voice. “Put your shoes on.”

“Why?” You hated how petulant and childish you sounded, bur you found that you were...afraid to go walking with him. Whatever he had to say to you, he could say it right here. Was he doing that thing that human men did, where they deliver bad news in a crowd in hopes of keeping their girl from making a scene?

“Because you’ve been stuck in here for weeks now and I’m worried about you. We’re going to go out into the sunlight. You need sunlight.” He set your computer down in his chair and then hovered near the mat where you took off your shoes. “Do you want your sandals or your trainers?”

“I can do it.” You dragged yourself to your feet. You weren’t about to make him retrieve your shoes like some kind of dog. Imagine what the people of Asgard would say if they saw Loki serving a human. When you’d finished shoving your feet into your shoes, Loki took your hands and pulled you around to face him. 

“It’s going to be alright,” he said, certainty clear in the rich warmth of his voice. You didn’t deserve his attention right now. “We’re going to be alright.” He smoothed down some of your hair, but you flinched away. You didn’t see the hurt look in his eyes, as you were too busy pulling open the door.

The streets weren’t quite deserted, but they were alarmingly close. Some tiny part of you, the last of your hopefulness, told you that it was a good sign, that it meant that people were making sacrifices in their own lives and staying home in order to keep other people safe, but all you could focus on was how dire everything felt. As you walked, Loki kept reaching for your hand, but his touch only made you hyperaware of who he was and what you were. Each time, you pulled your hand away again and slipped it into your pocket. 

The sunlight _was_ helping a little, and so was the warm breeze against your face. Slowly, some of your hopelessness started to fade. There were chalk drawings on the sidewalk, created by children and adults alike, and they all seemed to carry messages of hope. Daffodils were blooming in the tiny patches of grass, and they had yet to be choked out by weeds or garbage. When you passed the rare person out walking a dog, they always seemed to make eye contact and smile at you—rare, for New York—and most of the dogs’ tails wagged furiously as they passed. The next time that Loki reached for your hand, you didn’t retreat. He laced his fingers through yours and squeezed your hand gently.

In a fairly-cliche turn of events, some of the clouds parted in that very moment so the sun could beam down on the two of you. You smiled despite yourself and lifted your chin to look at Loki. As soon as you did, he gave you a wide smile, which only made your own grow larger. He pulled you off to the side of the sidewalk and pressed your shoulders against the cool brick of a bodega. He kissed you once, gentle and even chaste, and worked the fingers of one hand (the one not currently holding yours) through your hair.

“There’s that beautiful smile,” he murmured. “I haven’t seen it all day. You had me worried, love.” He rested his forehead against yours, pressing close to you as if to keep you from fleeing again.

Earlier today, your stomach might have twisted with guilt at his words—once again, you’d made him worry about something that an Asgardian prince had no need to worry about—but the movement and the sunlight had done much to warm you, so you only reached up with your free hand to play with his hair. 

“It was just too much,” you whispered. You closed your eyes. “Sometimes I...my brain goes into these spirals. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” His voice was just sharp enough to convince you that he meant what he was saying, without making you feel bad for doubting him. “I’m glad that I was here. Otherwise you might still be staring blankly at you computer screen. Thor said we should get outside for a bit. I hate to say it, but he was right.”

He’d been talking to Thor about _you_ , not about leaving. A watery laugh bubbled up in your chest even as you clenched your eyes shut tighter to keep the tears hidden. Loki caressed your cheek, and his question was unmistakable. Though you would have preferred to shake your head, dismiss it, you couldn’t quite bring yourself to do it. Not after what he’d done for you. “I thought… When you said you were going to talk to Thor, I thought you were trying to figure out how to tell me you were leaving.”

He laughed once, short and disbelieving, and then pressed his lips to yours again. “You are a beautiful fool,” he finally declared, tilting your chin upwards so he could kiss your forehead. “The only way that I’ll leave you is if you ask me to.” When he met your gaze, you could see the truth in his words, and had to blink away more of your tears. “Otherwise, I am here. With you. Because I _love_ you. Through good days and through storms. Alright?”

There was so much that you wanted to say to him that it felt like it was choking you. All you could do was nod, but it seemed to be enough. Loki smiled faintly at you and then stepped away, pulling you back onto the sidewalk. The two of you meandered through the early-springtime sunlight and laughed together.

You did not let go of his hand.


End file.
